5 Tips for Personalizing Your Law Firm Website & Getting More Clients

March 11, 2016 |
By
Nicolas Gomez

If you’re an attorney, you’re probably used to being in a competitive
industry. The Internet is no exception. If one law firm website fails
to impress or engage an online visitor, another site is always just a
click away. With that being said,
the last thing you want to do is have a cookie-cutter website for your law firm.

Instead, your site should grab your visitors’ attention, address
their needs, and make them feel connected to you and your law firm. The
more your visitors can personally identify with your site, the more likely
they’ll be to stick around, learn about your practice, and possibly
pick up the phone and call your firm.

Here are 5 tips for giving your website visitors a more personalized experience:

Who should your website target? Anyone and everyone? Not exactly. If you
create a website that is meant to please everyone, you’ll end up
with a highly generic one that doesn’t really get
anyone’s attention.

The key is to research your client base, create a “client persona”
based on this research (representing your typical client), and plan your
content, design, and images with this persona in mind. What images and
call-to-action messages would be most moving to a parent fighting for
child custody? What type of information would an injury victim who is
worried about paying for medical bills most care about? Once you truly
get inside the minds of your potential clients, you will then know how
to best get and keep their attention. (You should note that you may have
different personas for different areas of your practice.)

2. Give Your Website a Clear Voice

Choose the voice that is the best fit for your website and run with it.
Are you a criminal defense trial attorney who is going for a competitive
or aggressive tone? How about a family law attorney who wants to come
across as compassionate? While different areas of your site may call for
shifts in tone, you should know which overall sentiment you’re aiming
for. Without a clear plan, your website could end up having no voice,
which just makes you and your firm sound boring and distant.

3. Let Your Site Visitors Get to Know Your Attorneys

You may have a lot of great things to say about your law firm, but don’t
forget to showcase the strengths of your individual attorneys as well.
Potential clients want to know that they will be working with a lawyer
who is experienced, qualified, and attentive.

For starters, you will definitely need comprehensive bios for each of your
attorneys—bios that not only talk about their practice areas, experience,
and professional achievements, but also why they are passionate about
what they do. Be sure that each bio includes a professional, up-to-date
photo that shows your attorneys as confident, but approachable. It’s
also a good idea to include mentions of your lawyers’ most notable
accomplishments in other parts of your website so they get more exposure.

4. Share the Stories of Real People with Client Testimonials

Want your web visitors to know why your law firm is the best choice? Let
your clients do the talking. When you include testimonials, your site
visitors get to hear the personal stories and recommendations of actual
clients. This does two things: 1) adds credibility to your firm, and 2)
gives visitors a glimpse of how your clients have been personally impacted
by your legal services. You don’t just win cases—your change lives.

However, client testimonials will only work if visitors can tell that they
are authentic. To help authenticate your testimonials, it’s best
to include a name and photo with each testimonial (with your clients’
permission, of course). Or even better—use video testimonials. The
more visitors can see and connect with the client, the more impactful
the testimonial will be.

5. Perform A/B Testing to See What Your Visitors Like & Don’t Like

You can use A/B testing, or split testing, on various features of your
website to get a better idea of what has the biggest impact on your online
visitors. Here’s how A/B testing works: half of your visitors are
shown one version of a webpage while the other half is shown a different
version. You might test variations such as page designs, images, calls
to action, form placement, etc. If you find that one version gets significantly
more activity and conversions than the other, you can then update the
page accordingly. Give your visitors what they want, and they may return
the favor by showing greater interest in your site!

For more valuable tips from our legal marketing experts, download this
free guide.

About the Author Nicolas Gomez is Senior VP of Sales at Scorpion. He helps law firms generate
more business and increase their revenue through customized online marketing
strategies, including strategies that incorporate website development
and search engine advertising. Nicolas has more than 15 years of marketing,
technical, and industry experience. During his personal time, Nicolas
enjoys exercising, playing golf, playing in poker tournaments, and traveling.